


until all the stars fall in the sky, until the rivers all run dry

by momentaryapprehension



Category: PBG Hardcore
Genre: Canonical Character Death, Drabble, Gen, Homoerotic Grieving (tm), Implied/Referenced Character Death, M/M, Self-Doubt, Self-Esteem Issues, can be read as platonic/romantic spacebutter, i oppress straight gamer men with my sick bars about their block deaths, implied that there has been a Lot of seasons/repeats of a similar vein, not beta read. who do you think i am???, not mc5 or mc7 but it has the ~vibes~, these bitches dead! bad for them. bad for them., y'all know how it is, 😔✌️
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-27
Updated: 2020-06-27
Packaged: 2021-03-04 04:08:04
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,350
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24917335
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/momentaryapprehension/pseuds/momentaryapprehension
Summary: Jeff has questions that, as hard as he tries, he can't find the answers to.
Relationships: Jeff Fabre & Austin Hargrave, Jeff Fabre/Austin Hargrave
Comments: 8
Kudos: 7





	until all the stars fall in the sky, until the rivers all run dry

**Author's Note:**

> is there still an active hardcore fandom? do you guys still exist? did austin take you all in the divorce? i'm very lonely, i'm going to be honest. 😔 anyways, i sobbed over the repeats when the callback in mc7 first happened because, uh, who didn't? i wrote this to cope. thanks todd! i so very very sad 💞✨ i will never recover!!💞✨

In all the worlds they’ve been brought to, of all the seasons they’ve done, _questions_ have always been a constant.

The landscape seemed eerily infinite; they still didn’t know what the villagers actually were or how they’d _gotten_ here in the first place; whether or not they failed, a select few of them _always_ came back, the regulars, while the others seemed to fall away with the world, sometimes never to be seen again. The wizard was an enigma. There was so much they didn't understand, an all-consuming sense of confusion, _desperation._

Answers are not always a constant, and Jeff finds questions without answers are far less a _comfort_ than they are nerve-wracking, something to fear. Monsters and creatures of the night were one thing—he could handle _monsters,_ defend and hide away from them. No blade in the _world_ would allow him safety from the uncertainties of his own head. 

It’s not so bad when there are people to distract him from it, but he’s _alone_ so often now. And he’s been the sole survivor for a couple seasons in a row—he doesn’t know how he keeps doing it, but it’s getting _to him,_ and it’s so _quiet._ Everywhere he goes, there’s ambient silence, _nothingness._ The house is empty. He faces winning by _himself_ again when he knows he has no chance, no _semblance_ of it even. 

He lost Austin to a creeper again. It was always a _creeper,_ somehow, like the entire species had some violent _grudge_ towards the two of them. It might even be _funny_ if it weren’t so soul-crushing, so disheartening—and y’know, _traumatizing._ Seeing your best friend die in front of you in horrifically gruesome fashion isn’t an _amazing_ experience, especially more than once, but... 

_Fuck._ They had a _chance_ for a second there. They really did, but then...

God, this just keeps happening, doesn’t it? He wonders, he wonders, he wonders. Jeff wonders just how many more times he must see Austin’s remains _splattered_ against the cobble, staining the grass, tools scattered and broken at their hilts. How many times would Austin’s name die on his lips before his body even hit the ground? Would he be alone by the end with nothing, _no one,_ a sickening sense of hopelessness and despair twisting in his gut over and over again forever? How many sets of tombstones and _graves_ he’ll dig out in the backyard before he won’t have to anymore, how many times would he fail them all?

It feels like it’s been millennia of this—more than that, even. Maybe it has been. Not like he’d know. Past day and night cycles, time isn’t really a thing. 

Of all the regulars, pieces of _Austin’s_ body make it to his grave the least. Jeff tries to give him the best burial he can manage every single time—it’s the least he deserves, the least Jeff can give Austin for all of his failures and _mistakes_ —but his latest deaths haven’t been kind. Creepers rarely left the prettiest of pictures in their wake.

Out of respect for his fallen friends, he buries picks and swords in place of carcasses, never able to stomach _scrounging_ through the messes of blood and shattered gear for anything else to take in memoriam. Not like he ever had much _time_ to, anyway; he only ever had a few minutes at most to grab what he could before the corpses _rot_ and the equipment he doesn’t bring with him _disintegrates_ into thin air.

He swallows with his hands covered in sparkling red and torn-up, decomposing flesh, the glint of coated diamonds. Care is put into slipping fractured equipment into his own bag, his shaking fingers adding an extra level of difficulty to the act, but he’s well-practiced. The sight and the smell of rot is almost natural to him now, a concept he continues to find abhorrent, but he gets the job done. He looks no one in the eyes, but he takes special precautions to ensure he doesn’t look into Austin’s. He doesn’t understand why he does it, why _Austin_ is seemingly so different to everyone else, but it feels right. As right as it _could_ feel, anyway. _Not much right in their situation to begin with._

But he wonders about it, like he always does, even though it doesn’t aid him in his quest at all. It’s a _distraction,_ if anything, but he can’t stop _thinking about it._

Like Austin always does, always _will,_ he continues to occupy Jeff’s every thought. 

Maybe it’s how frequently it’s Austin who’s bloodied and broken in front of him, the striking contrast of it. One second he’s energized and sporadic and alive, the next he’s lifeless and decaying in the grass. The pull of his lips that’s always just the slightest bit off-kilter, the way his eyes crinkle when he laughs and the ever-ruffled state of his hair, is that what it is? The honest-to-god, earnest _hope_ being with Austin seems to give him, even when things seem hopeless, even when they _are,_ is that why?

Sometimes it feels like he sees Austin dead more than he does alive, the smiles and the laughter and limited time they get together before each inevitable blow leaving him hollow but _aching._ It never doesn’t hurt, no matter how hard he tries to _prepare_ himself for it, _refuse_ himself the belief that maybe this time will be different, maybe things’ll _change_ if he just _believes_ they will.

They don’t. Jeff curses and _screams_ at himself _every single_ time he—if only for the _split second_ he has before Austin’s gone again, torn straight from his grasp as the universe _mocks_ him—almost thinks they might. It’s all a matter of _when_ isn’t it? Regardless of if it is or not, it sure fucking _feels_ like it. Like a sick game of _chance._ A game above all else, all of it nothing but _entertainment_ to someone. He doesn’t know who that someone is, but it sure as hell isn’t him. And just like that, it’s all gone, Austin’s gone, and that feeble sliver of hope is _gone,_ and he feels like an idiot for ever believing it _meant something._

Austin stains his armor as he goes this time, its pale white surface becoming covered in a thin, clumpy layer of _crimson._ Jeff turns around just as the explosion happens, just in time to make horrified but knowing eye-contact and pull his shield up.

Drops of it hit his face somehow, even past his barrier. He spends the next few days trying to clean it off, _scratch it off,_ but there’re marks and soiled spots on his skin that _won’t go away_ no matter how hard he tries, no matter how _invisible_ they appear, he knows they're there. He shuts his eyes and kneels in the sand for _hours_ everyday with shaking, heaving breaths, nails scrubbing and pressing it _raw._ The salt-water burns like nether-fire—it hurts, _God does it,_ but it isn’t until the sun falls beneath the horizon that he can pry himself away from the pool, drag himself to sleep so he can come back to the sea again. 

Jeff tries to give Austin a good burial. He tries to give him a send-off speech, too, something he hasn’t done in a while, but he can’t get through his train of thought without breaking. All he kept this time was a diamond sword, the only thing of value in good-enough condition to _move._ With his sleeves rolled up and hair falling in his eyes, he sits on his knees in front of the open grave, leaning over it and setting the blade down gently into its damp tan encasing; his shoulders tremble as he barely holds it together, chest aching with uneasy, ocean-flavored breath. The waves audibly crash against the bay and the wind is cool against his skin, _prickling._ It's cold, _freezing,_ but he doesn't want to move; he stares at the dirtied sword for one second, two, _more._

He closes his eyes and, at least for now, lets himself rest. 

**Author's Note:**

> why would you get trauma? just say no thank you. :/
> 
> i like to think that, at some point, the hardcore crew would make a beach/ocean house. it just seemed natural, you know? anyway, this ends somewhat abruptly, as i never actually finished it, but it honestly isn't as bad as some of my other works from the time. i don't know how many more i'll post (as most of them are unpolished and very unfinished) but i hope it was at least kind of enjoyable! vv


End file.
